Date: Sat, 03 Aug 1996 11:13:50 -0500 From: Randy DuCharme <randyd@nconnect.net> To: Dennis Perry <drp@mds.rmit.edu.au> Cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: A dud CDROM copy or Drive Geometry problems? Message-ID: <32037ABE.3ABB@nconnect.net> References: <1.5.4.32.19960802042054.006b7ba8@mailserver.citri.edu.au>
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Dennis Perry wrote: > > I have been trying for several days to install FreeBSD 2.1 from the Walnut > Creek January 1996 DCROM distribution. > > I have copied the files from the CD to a DOS partition (C:\FREEBSD) as per > the manual (Installing and Running FreeBSD by Greg Lehey p39). I have also > RTFM and I'm starting from scratch, so there is no data to worry about. > > As you can see I want to run DOS on one partition and FreeBSD on the other. > I have a 1 Gb drive, and I've also followed instructions in the manual for > partitioning a large EIDE drive (p27) and a Shared OS Installation (p61) > > I'm not sure whether I've got a hardware problem, or a problems with the > distribution. The hardware setup may be the heart of the problem: > specifically the hard disk and controller. So I'll quickly describe it the > hardware: > > IT486SMV motherboard (with 2 VL-Bus slots) with a 1992 AMIBIOS (with > automatic disk detection, but no LBA or Large disk support) > 486DX2-66 Intel Overdrive processor and 20 Mb RAM > Lighting Speed VL-Bus I/O Controller (SIDE jr Pro) with on board BIOS with > support for IDE > 528Mb (>1024 cylinders) in either LBA or XCHS modes > Western Digital Caviar AC31000 (2100/16/63 1083.8Mb) > > There is no CDROM drive, which is why I copied the CD files across the network. > > I noted in the manual that the PROMISE EIDE controller doesn't work with > FreeBSD. Perhaps I have found another dud controller card. > > I partitioned the 1 Gb drive into one DOS partition and then used FIPS to > create a second partition. The DOS partition is 400Mb and the FreeBSD is > 600Mb. The root partition for FreeBSD should still be within the first 504 > Mb -- Yes? > > During a minimal installation I get: > > On VTY1 > > Write failure on transfer! (wrote -1 byte of 10240 bytes) > > On VTY2 > > gunzip: stdin: invalid compressed data -- format violated > DEBUG: Dummy [default] close called for wd0s1 with fd of 7 > DEBUG: Switching back to VTY1 > /stand/cpio: premature end of file > > This happens a short way into the /bin extraction, ie after /bin/chmod > > The system appears to lockup and reboot :-( > > When I boot to DOS and try FIPS again I get an error message: > > Partition Table Corrupt - end partition 1 > > I'd really appreciate some suggestions on how to proceed from here :-) > > ============================================================= > Dr Dennis Perry tekniche pty ltd > Multimedia Database Systems mobile: 0412 173 154 > drp@mds.rmit.edu.au > http://www.mds.rmit.edu.au/~drp/ > "Prediction is always difficult, especially of the future" > Niels Bohr was fond of quoting this "old Danish proverb", presumably in > Danish (but it's hard to predict). Greetings, I had similar difficulties when I tried to do what you were doing on a large SCSI disk. I don't know if this will help you or not, but here's how I got around it.... (The root FBSD partition needs to be below 1024 cyls) 1)Created 20M / partition as the 'first' partition. 2)Created 800M partition for DOS / Win95 as the 'second' partition. 3)Remaining disk space was used for /usr & /var. Hope this helps. Randy
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